Last weekend I visited the chocolate show in Piazza Maggiore, Bologna.
There were so many kiosks full of every kind of chocolate, from everywhere in Italy: chocolate from Modica, in Sicily (they say it's the closest variety to the Aztec one!), from Piedmont (the famous gianduia), from Florence (where Pistocchi, the best chocolate torta in Italy, is based).
What about chocolate from Bologna? Well, with Majani and La Sorbetteria Castiglione, chocolate lovers can satisfy their needs even without the cioccoshow!
Visualizzazione post con etichetta (extra-)Ordinary life. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta (extra-)Ordinary life. Mostra tutti i post
lunedì 24 novembre 2008
lunedì 17 novembre 2008
Bars in Bologna
Bologna is full of bars. Being a wealthy town, people are used to having colazione (cornetto e cappuccino), or simply an espresso at the bar.
The aperitivo, on the contrary, is more typical of Milan, where you can even have dinner without going back home. In Bologna it is instead a way to make you hungry. Over the last few years, some bars have tried to offer the same aperitivo as Milan, but there's no comparison. In Bologna, people want to sit down and eat, and they want to eat seriously, not just a simple slice of mortadella served in a tiny piece of bread. We may clearly state that in Bologna the real aperitivo alla milanese will never take place.
After dinner, the bolognesi and even more so the students, like to go out and sit down at a bar, or a pub, sipping some wine, beer or even grappa. In spring or summer it's great to stay outside; but in the winter it's rather cold. No problem: here is the way to make the winter warm outside. Somebody says it's not the best way to fight the energy wasting, but bars need to work.
I personally like to stay in when the weather is cold, but a lot of people don't: with such a view outside, they can't be blamed!
The aperitivo, on the contrary, is more typical of Milan, where you can even have dinner without going back home. In Bologna it is instead a way to make you hungry. Over the last few years, some bars have tried to offer the same aperitivo as Milan, but there's no comparison. In Bologna, people want to sit down and eat, and they want to eat seriously, not just a simple slice of mortadella served in a tiny piece of bread. We may clearly state that in Bologna the real aperitivo alla milanese will never take place.
After dinner, the bolognesi and even more so the students, like to go out and sit down at a bar, or a pub, sipping some wine, beer or even grappa. In spring or summer it's great to stay outside; but in the winter it's rather cold. No problem: here is the way to make the winter warm outside. Somebody says it's not the best way to fight the energy wasting, but bars need to work.
I personally like to stay in when the weather is cold, but a lot of people don't: with such a view outside, they can't be blamed!
sabato 22 marzo 2008
Muhammad Yunus in Bologna, aula Santa Lucia
Last Sunday 19th March, the Nobel Prize Muhammad Yunus, from Bangladesh, launched the International Observatory for Micro-finance (IOM) at the University of Bologna.
I read Banker to the Poor, wrote by Yunus, and I feel disappointed that he was awarded the Noble Peace Prize instead of Economics. To find a way to lend money to poor people, to have 200 million customers with over 90% of repayments rate, to found a bank which helps people to be independent, this is a matter of economics. Peace is a consequence.
The video-interview at beppegrillo.it.
I read Banker to the Poor, wrote by Yunus, and I feel disappointed that he was awarded the Noble Peace Prize instead of Economics. To find a way to lend money to poor people, to have 200 million customers with over 90% of repayments rate, to found a bank which helps people to be independent, this is a matter of economics. Peace is a consequence.
The video-interview at beppegrillo.it.
giovedì 31 gennaio 2008
Touring in Bologna
It's a long time I've been thinking about a project.
As most of you know, I organize and run tours in Le Marche. All the people who came here have seen how I love this region, and how great were the experiences between Corinaldo, Ancona, Ascoli, Monte Conero, Urbino, Jesi and so on.
But still... there is another town, not in Le Marche, which deserves much more attention than the actual one.
We all know that the main tourist route - for those who come to Italy for the first time - is Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples. Personally, I'd skip Milan and choose Venice. Whatever the choice is, you have to pass through Bologna.
What is Bologna? Bologna is "Italy". Whereas Le Marche are all that you can find in Italy, resumed in one region (therefore "Italy in one region", as the claim of our Tourist Board says), Bologna is the thermometer of Italy: the social situation in Bologna is a synthesis of the society in Italy.
It's Italy's political lab: all the experiments about welfare, transportation, education and so on have their first try here. If they work, they will be replicated in national scale.
It's Europe's oldest university: the Alma Mater Studiorum dates back to the year 1089, and students are everywhere. If an Italian thinks about Bologna, he recalls culture, politics and... food!
Yes, because food is the third important thing of Bologna. Being in the middle of Italy, in a postion which can't be avoided by any traveller, crossroad between the Pianura Padana of Northern Italy and the Appennini to go south, close to Florence on the way to Rome, not far from Venice, Milan, Turin, Bologna has always been the melting pot of that crowd of small states that was Italy in the past.
No surprises, then, that every student and every traveller brought his home tradition to Bologna. Hence, the cuisine started to improve. The symbol of this cuisine is - not by chance - the Tortellino. This navel-shaped pasta stuffed with a lot of different things - so many that even every house has its own receipe for that - is by no means the essence of Bologna. Like its pasta, Bologna is the navel of Italy. And like the inside, Bologna is stuffed with lots of different people.
This is just to make you hungry of this town... the rest will come step by step...
As most of you know, I organize and run tours in Le Marche. All the people who came here have seen how I love this region, and how great were the experiences between Corinaldo, Ancona, Ascoli, Monte Conero, Urbino, Jesi and so on.
But still... there is another town, not in Le Marche, which deserves much more attention than the actual one.
We all know that the main tourist route - for those who come to Italy for the first time - is Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples. Personally, I'd skip Milan and choose Venice. Whatever the choice is, you have to pass through Bologna.
What is Bologna? Bologna is "Italy". Whereas Le Marche are all that you can find in Italy, resumed in one region (therefore "Italy in one region", as the claim of our Tourist Board says), Bologna is the thermometer of Italy: the social situation in Bologna is a synthesis of the society in Italy.
It's Italy's political lab: all the experiments about welfare, transportation, education and so on have their first try here. If they work, they will be replicated in national scale.
It's Europe's oldest university: the Alma Mater Studiorum dates back to the year 1089, and students are everywhere. If an Italian thinks about Bologna, he recalls culture, politics and... food!
Yes, because food is the third important thing of Bologna. Being in the middle of Italy, in a postion which can't be avoided by any traveller, crossroad between the Pianura Padana of Northern Italy and the Appennini to go south, close to Florence on the way to Rome, not far from Venice, Milan, Turin, Bologna has always been the melting pot of that crowd of small states that was Italy in the past.
No surprises, then, that every student and every traveller brought his home tradition to Bologna. Hence, the cuisine started to improve. The symbol of this cuisine is - not by chance - the Tortellino. This navel-shaped pasta stuffed with a lot of different things - so many that even every house has its own receipe for that - is by no means the essence of Bologna. Like its pasta, Bologna is the navel of Italy. And like the inside, Bologna is stuffed with lots of different people.
This is just to make you hungry of this town... the rest will come step by step...
venerdì 16 marzo 2007
Malta is one flight away from Bologna
This Malta Independent news make me thinking about a sort of unusual matter. When the flight to Malta has been established, last year, I thought "Great news, Malta is closer now!"; actually, it might be vice-versa.
It may sound silly, but lot of times our point of view is based on our location. When working about tourism in some unusual places (like Le Marche, for example, in my case), the way of thinking is somewhat shaken.
Therefore: lucky Maltese, just an hour from Bologna, and lucky Londoners, a couple hours from Ancona!
It may sound silly, but lot of times our point of view is based on our location. When working about tourism in some unusual places (like Le Marche, for example, in my case), the way of thinking is somewhat shaken.
Therefore: lucky Maltese, just an hour from Bologna, and lucky Londoners, a couple hours from Ancona!
lunedì 29 gennaio 2007
You may say I'm a dreamer...
January, Bologna station. It's Friday, a day when you'd like to go everywhere. Why not Le Marche? I was just thinking to go there for a weekend, and I see, from the posters, that I may not be the only one :-)Sometimes I'm proud to see posters like this: beautiful pics for a beautiful land.
ah...
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